Newspaper Clippings

Newspaper Clippings

posted February 23, 2005

Rosie Dimanno in the Toronto Star, February 23, 2005(About the breastfeeding hubub at Dufferin Grove Park): "This is an intra-league ideological dispute - the granola left eating itself" ...and... "Discretion may not be enshrined in law. But neither is courtesy and we could all do with a little more of that." Read more >>

About us: who were the friends of Dufferin Grove Park?

How the Park Works

Dufferin Grove Park is operated by the City of Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation Division. It is not operated by the friends of the park, nor by volunteers.

The friends of Dufferin Grove Park no longer exist. They were never an organization. There was no executive, no annual meetings, no formal status. There was no written agreement anywhere between the friends and the city. But in times of trouble, there were impromptu park-user meetings, usually attended by 30 to 100 people depending on the issue.

So how did it work then, in the day to day? And who were these "friends of Dufferin Grove Park"?

The friends were all those people - more every year until 2012 - who are friendly to that 14.2 -acre city-owned common space which is bordered by the Dufferin Mall, St.Mary's Catholic High School, and the mixture of affluent and subsidized housing that borders the park to the east and the south. Most park friends expressed their friendship only through their joy at what goes on in the park. At the other extreme, for about 15 years, Jutta Mason made friendship for the park her almost-full-time hobby. In between, there were many people who gave things (time, plants, music, theatre, toys in the sandpit, conversation, sports skills, etc., etc.) as they felt moved to do that. There was no schedule to how these things are given, no five-year plan - it was (sorry) organic. Some of the friends crossed over to being park staff, magnifying their friendship as they were able to increase their responsibilities there.